


Extra Years

by stardustandswimmingpools



Series: pietro lives 'verse [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers Family, Avengers Tower, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Clint Barton-centric, Father Figures, Gen, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Protective Clint Barton, Protective Siblings, SERIOUSLY WHY DID HE DIE?? SO UNNECESSARY, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Thor makes a cameo, Trust Issues, canon compliant apart from pietro living, clint is wanda and pietro's adoptive dad, how the hell old are the maximoffs?, i've wanted to use that tag for approximately a year, if you haven't noticed, jokes about Steve hating swearing, like eighteen? nineteen?, oh my god i am complete, same logic from the Flash applied to Quicksilver, this fic is about clint barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 22:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13063059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandswimmingpools/pseuds/stardustandswimmingpools
Summary: Sokovia shatters, Pietro is alive, and Clint is exhausted. But there are goodbyes, still, and Clint will not leave them unsaid.





	Extra Years

**Author's Note:**

> **alternately titled "Clint Barton Is Not That Old"**  
>  AHHH!!! i just rewatched Age of Ultron and thought to myself, "pietro maximoff? dying? never heard of her," and then this 5.8k fic was borne of that thought. but seriously, what a stupid death.  
> anyway, i love Clint Barton and I love Laura Barton and I love his whole domestic side-life. I also love his chill-but-fatherly attitude towards, well, everyone, and what i'm getting at here is i love Clint Barton, so here's this! takes place immediately after Age of Ultron, and is entirely canon compliant, except, you know, the Pietro thing.  
> Note: I don't know if he's ever actually called Quicksilver, like, ever, but I'm pretending at least one person calls him that so Stark has some background for the nickname.  
> Second note: because I don't know how superpowers work at all, I used the same logic from The Flash to explain why Quicksilver lives - his cells just heal incredibly quickly, so he should be dead but he ain't. and that's the way it is. awesome - onward!

Pietro is barely alive, but Clint will take that sliver of hope any day. He’s a spy, and he’s a cynic, but he’s also married. It’s hard to be in love without falling upon a little bit of hope here and there.

There’s no way to tell Wanda that he’s still breathing, so Clint doesn’t bother. He almost feels badly, but this could be her rallying point — her Phil Coulson — and besides, the lifeboat is taking off now. 

The medics rush over and Clint lets them take the kid, watching with barely controlled worry as he disappears into the med bay.

A woman sits, shaking with doe-eyes blown huge with fear, on one of the benches. Clint slumps down onto the seat and then winces when his shoulder hits the back. Must’ve gotten cut. Or blasted. Or shot. There’s a whole world of possibility, really.

Distantly he wonders about the rest of the Avengers. He knows Thor and Stark had been blasting the city to smithereens, and even though he’d heard Stark suggest that they might die, Clint’s not stupid. 

Those bastards are way too stubborn to die now.

Natasha should be on one of the ships, but Clint is too exhausted to worry about that. She can handle herself. She’s shaken, but she’s strong, he knows.

“Does anybody copy?” he asks in a low voice into the comms, for the sake of it more than anything.

Heavy breathing. “I copy,” Rogers answers. “Anyone else? Come in.”

  
Natasha’s voice comes through the comms. “I copy.”

Something lands on the roof of the lifeboat with a thunk. Clint jerks his head up. There are points of heavy impact — footsteps — crossing the roof of the ship, and then they disappear and Thor’s face shows up outside the window. He mouths to Clint:  _ Hello! _

“Thor copies,” Clint says dryly. “Banner?”

The dead air that follows makes Clint’s stomach clench uncomfortably. “Banner?” he repeats.

“Banner, come in if you copy,” Steve’s voice says. He sounds very sure of himself. Clint wonders if Banner will answer by sheer desire not to let down the Captain.

No such luck.

“He’s in a Quinjet,” Natasha says. “It’s cloaked. We can’t track it. And…he’s still...the other guy.”

Clint hears her voice crack for a moment on  _ other guy _ , but he decides to keep that to himself.

“Banner can take care of himself,” Rogers says firmly, even though they’re all thinking that even if that’s true, it remains to be seen whether or not the  _ Hulk _ can take care of himself. But it’s Steve’s job, Clint supposes, to boost team morale, or whatever the fuck.

Speaking of which.

“Um, hello? Just saved the world, for, what is this? Fourth time? Fifth?”

“Stark,” Steve says, sighing.

“Hiya, Captain. I’m happy to report that the city of Sokovia is no longer in business.”

“Nice work,” Rogers says. Clint detects a note of subtler praise. He keeps this to himself, too. The burdens of being a spy. “Okay, everyone. Our job is done. Get some rest, get cleaned up.”

Clint exhales and yanks the comms out of his ears. It’s probably unwise to do so, but all he wants right now is a hot shower and a ten-year nap, and he knows that’ll never happen as long as Stark has access to the comms units.

Sue him, he’s tired. Pietro would make a joke about his age; Clint scoffs at that.

_ Pietro. _

Shit.

In an instant he’s wide awake again (that’s an overstatement; but all he needs is a nine-year nap now, to put it simply). He manages to stand, and doesn’t trip as he walks purposefully to the med bay.

“Mr. Barton,” one of the doctors says.

“How is he?” Clint asks, urgency in his tone. “The kid, how is he?”

“Alive,” the doctor says. Clint breathes out. “But only just. He took a lot of hits.”

“If that son of a bitch dies, I’m gonna kill him,” Clint mutters. “Where is he?”

“We gave him a heavy dose of anaesthesia, but all it did was make him talk slower,” the doctor says. She sounds baffled by this fact. 

Clint stares. “Where is he, doctor?”

The doctor gestures with a hand to Pietro’s bed, and Clint crosses and, in one swift motion, yanks the curtain open to stare at the boy.

“We got the bullets out and we’re staggering the blood flow so he doesn't bleed out,” the doctor explains. “I- I'll give you a minute.”

She disappears.

“Well, shit,” Clint says. “You’ve got a little somethin’. Everywhere.”

Pietro grimaces. “If you weren’t so slow,” he grits out.

Clint rolls his eyes. “They should’ve drugged you.”

Pietro makes a spastic motion that is probably an attempt to shrug. “They tried. My metabolism, it is too fast.”

“Ah, I was never one for science anyway,” Clint says good-naturedly. He swallows, clears his throat. “Your sister thinks you’re dead.”

Pietro’s eyes widen. “Wanda. Is she —”

“She’s fine,” Clint assures him. He considers this statement, because it’s technically not true, because technically Clint doesn’t know. She’s not on their comms, and last he knew she’d been on the floating island of Sokovia. He can only pray that someone had grabbed her, although it’s hard to be certain of this when both of their flying fighters have just reported on the comms sans any mention of a psychokinetic teenage girl.

Pietro’s eyes flutter shut, and he breathes out (with obvious difficulty, but evidently relieved). “Where is she?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Clint says. “How bad is the damage?”

Pietro grits his teeth. “I’m breathing, am I not?”

“Great,” Clint mutters. “The standard is breathing. Good to know.”

Pietro coughs out a chuckle. “The doctor, she took my blood. She seemed...confused. She said my cells were healing quickly. Abnormally quickly.”

Clint mulls this over. He’s not a scientist, true, but he’s pretty certain he can do this math. Fast metabolism, fast running, fast everything. Fast healing.

“If not for this,” Pietro says thoughtfully, lifting his hand and vibrating it so quickly it becomes a blur, “I would be dead.”

“Damn!” Clint says, grinning. “Missed it by that much.”

Pietro’s smile does not reach his eyes. “Mr. Barton.”

“Clint,” Clint offers.

Pietro amends, “Clint. Will I...will I be safe? Will my sister be safe?”

Clint wants so badly to promise that they will. But that’s not his call, and it’s far from the truth. Avenger or not, Pietro is not a normal guy. He’s gonna have a target painted on his back that follows him to his grave, or, inevitably, leads him there. 

At a guess, this kid is twenty, maybe younger.

“I’ll protect you,” he says. This is the only promise he can make. “We’ll protect you.”

Pietro’s face darkens. He’s young, but it’s clear he can see through Clint’s strategic talk. So Clint employs the tried-and-true method of changing the subject. 

“You’re hurt bad,” he points out. “You should try and get some rest.”

“I am young,” Pietro says, smirking with effort. “Young and fast. I will heal quickly. It is my nature, didn’t you know?”

“Yeah, yeah, Mr. Braggadocio over here’s got so much going for him,” Clint retorts.

“You, on the other hand,” Pietro says, with an impish grin. “ _ You _ ought to rest. I hear that old men break backs easier.”

“I’ll show you a broken back,” Clint says. He rolls his eyes at Pietro, and barely resists giving him an affectionate hair-ruffle. When did he become such a...such a dad?

Must’ve been the whole having-kids affair.

"Rest,” Clint adds. “Seriously. That’s an order.”

Pietro raises an eyebrow.

Clint sighs and pushes his comms back into his ear. “Rogers.”

“What’s up, Barton?”

“Will you please order this punk to get some rest?” He pushes a finger into a button on the comms and the voice of Captain America comes out like it’s on speakerphone.

“Get some rest,” Rogers commands.

“Thank you,” Clint says.

“I was talking to you, Barton.” Clint takes a moment to allow Pietro to indulge in Steve’s joke and grin. “I don’t know what punk you’re talking about, but he better get some rest, too. That’s an order.”

“Thanks, Cap.” Clint pulls off the comms and pockets the thing. “Capische?”

Pietro squirms uncomfortably. His eyes flicker over to an empty bed a couple feet away. Clint follows his glance.

“If you do not have anything better to do…” Pietro trails off. Clint scrutinizes his face. He looks more lost and afraid now, more like a kid, than Clint has seen in a long time.

He smiles with as much fatherly warmth as he can muster. “I’d be happy to, kid.”

He pulls off his sheath of arrows, folds the bow and sticks it under the pillow, and flops down on his back.

It’s only minutes before he hears Pietro’s steady, shallow breathing. At a quick glance, Clint can tell he’s asleep.

It’s remarkable that anyone can sleep in these conditions.

Clint finds himself drifting off after only a few minutes of tumultuous thought.

Must have been quite a day.

* * *

“Wanda,” Pietro chokes out when he stumbles off the lifeboat, supported only by Clint. There is Wanda, looking utterly destroyed, exhausted, and...furious?

“Pietro,” she breathes. She runs forward, but Clint holds out a placating hand.

“I wouldn't do that,” he says, not unkindly. “Your brother’s alive, but he's pretty roughed up.”

“I will show you roughed up,” Wanda snarls, shoving at Clint’s shoulder and dislodging him from Pietro’s side. “My brother is stronger than any of you.”

“Stop your worrying,” Pietro says. His mouth twists into a smirk. “You didn't really think me dead, did you?”

Wanda glares at Pietro so coldly that Clint is surprised icicles don't shoot from her eyes. Then she grabs his shoulders and pulls him into a hug. “If you ever do that again,” she threatens, “I will kill you.”

It's pretty clear that Pietro is in pain, so Clint gently pries Wanda off of her brother. “Have some mercy,” he says lightly. “The kid just came back from the dead.”

“Yes,” Wanda says tightly, turning her icy glare onto Clint. “Let us see if you have the same ability.”

“Hey, let's all take a step back, now,” Clint says, holding up his hands in surrender. 

“Wanda, stop,” Pietro says, falling heavily forth onto his foot and putting a hand on her shoulder. “We are all alive. We won.”

Clint swallows and waits. Worst comes to worst, he  _ thinks  _ he can restrain Wanda, but he's not exactly eager to take that chance. Pietro is in no shape to be moving at all, much less moving quickly.

Wanda lunges forward, and Clint readies himself for an attack. Instead he feels her arms wrap tightly around his neck and her face pressed into his shoulder.

“Oh,” he says. Hugging is definitely better than the other thing. He tentatively hugs her back.

“You stupid, stupid man,” Wanda mumbles. “I hate you.”

Clint strokes her hair. God, how old are these kids? “Yeah, yeah,” he says. 

He almost feels like he's adopted two more children. 

Laura’s gonna kill him.

“Okay,” he says. “Let's get you kids somewhere with beds and grub.”

Pietro gives him an ironic, pained expression. “Race you there.”

“Not today, pal,” Clint says, grabbing Pietro’s arm and slinging it around Clint’s own shoulders. Wanda comes around Pietro’s other side and takes his other arm.

They make it into the new Avengers facility in good time, where they're met with Steve Rogers. “Barton,” he says, nodding. He turns his gaze on to Wanda and Pietro. “Welcome,” he says. “Glad to have you on the team. Pietro, let's get you to the med lab.”

“I got it,” Clint says. “And then there's something I wanna run by you, Captain.”

“We’ll meet back here in ten. Wanda,” he says, addressing her. Wanda looks instantly defensive, and Clint doesn't miss how her hands lift just so. He can almost see the red tendrils of magic about to start curling off her fingers.

He reaches across Pietro with his free hand and puts it on top of Wanda’s. “Easy, soldier. He's one of the good ones.” His eyes flicker to the Captain. “Although I'll warn you, you might want to watch your language around him.”

“Really?” Steve says, exasperated. 

Clint grins cheerfully. “Come on, speedy,” he says. “Let's go get you fixed up by a pro.”

“A doctor?”

“Nope. Tony Stark.”

* * *

The Captain gets Wanda and Pietro set up proactively with a room. S.H.I.E.L.D. has altruistically offered this building as the new training and living facility for the Avengers. Clint suspects they have ulterior motives — when do they not? — but it's better for all parties involved if they're all in one place, anyway. He tries not to think too hard about it. His brain needs to nap.

Pietro is already doing better. It's insane. Clint wonders how Steve will feel when he finds out that not only can Pietro run, he also has the same healing factor as the Captain. Better actually.

The med lab is still and silent, which is why it takes Clint a moment to realize that Tony Stark is actually present, tinkering. Silence is not the sound Clint associates with Stark.

“Stark,” he says. Tony looks up. 

“Ah! My favorite archer,” he says, making a grand gesture towards a flimsy mattress. Clint recognizes it from every doctor’s office ever. You’d think with all that dough, the guy could invest in some more comfortable mattresses. “Second favorite, actually, I’m a big fan of Robin Hood…” His eyes travel over Pietro’s guarded face. “How many times did you get shot? Ten? Twenty? Never mind. Lucky for you, I am the world’s leading expert on getting shot a lot of times. Let's see it.”

Pietro limps over to the bed and sits obediently. 

“He's got a,” Clint starts, “a thing...his metabolism…”

Stark scans Pietro with his phone and throws the holographic picture into the air. It floats in front of his face. He spins it around.

“Wow,” he says. “You are truly a masterpiece. I don't mean to objectify you, of course. Well, I kind of do. This is incredible. Your cells are already repairing themselves…”

Clint tunes out the chatter. This sounds more like the Tony Stark he knows.

It occurs to him belatedly that Stark usually has someone to talk to when he's alone — JARVIS.

So much for that. No wonder he'd been silent before.

Clint makes a mental note to tell the Captain not to leave Stark alone for too long. Jury’s still out on his mental stability.

Pietro is absorbing Stark’s rapid-fire palaver with interest. Clint can accept that. If he had superspeed, he'd probably want to know what else his body could do.

As it is, his body could really use a nap right now. A nap, a kiss, a home-cooked meal.

He could really use a family right now.

His heart twists and aches with longing for his wife and kids. 

With a hand lifted in silent adieu to Pietro, he slips out of the med lab and meets Rogers by the front door. Ten minutes on the dot. Let it never be said that the Avengers aren’t punctual.

“Hey, Captain,” Clint says.

“Feeling better?” Steve asks. The Captain thing, Clint thinks privately, must be a part of his personality by now. It must be at his core.

“Ah,” he says, stretching. “Better is relative.”

Steve acknowledges this by lifting his shoulder noncommittally.

“I'm going home,” Clint says clearly. Steve doesn't look surprised. “I need...normalcy. Whatever that means anymore.” He chuckles lowly. “I need my family.”

“I understand,” Steve says. He drops the captain act for a few moments — Clint can tell; his shoulders relax and his eyes soften. “Take care of yourself, Clint. And take care of Laura and the kids too. God knows we could all use some normalcy.”

Clint swallows. Going home is a no-brainer, but there are a couple of people he needs to see first.

“Thanks, Captain,” Clint says, saluting. Steve rolls his eyes. “And take care of the twins for me, alright? They're kids.”

“Getting soft in your old age?” Steve teases.

“Why does everyone think I'm old?” Clint says, throwing his hands in the air in despair.

Steve chuckles. “I'll get a jet set up for you. Get going,” he says, whacking Clint on the head with a newspaper —  _ where the hell did that come from? Does the Captain just randomly carry newspapers? —  _ and turning to go.

“Hey, respect your elders,” Clint calls after him.

“I'm 97,” Steve throws over his shoulder.

Clint scoffs.

* * *

Natasha is in the bathtub of her designated room. She's naked, stripped down to her core, and Clint can see that she's bleeding in several places, but she's not cleaning her wounds or even cleaning herself at all. She's just sitting, stoic and silent, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms around them. She doesn’t acknowledge Clint as he enters the bathroom. She knows his footsteps; she must know it’s him.

He sits on the floor across from her, in her line of sight.

She looks up when he sits. Clint can't recall the last time he'd seen Nat this vulnerable. Maybe when he'd been compromised. But that was different: his bond with Nat surpasses any textbook definition. If it had been Nat compromised, Clint would've torn Loki limb to limb to get her back. They have an intense sense of obligation, of dedication to each other. Of family. 

Nat is the closest thing to family Clint has in this place. 

And here she is, so obviously distressed.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

“He’ll turn up,” Clint says. “You know he will. Remember with Loki, when the bastard just pulled up on a motorcycle? He can’t stay away.”

Nat doesn’t say anything, but she looks away, her eyes roving over the bathtub walls.

“Nat,” Clint says quietly. 

“We were going to leave,” she interrupts. Her voice is steady so as to almost be scary in its calmness, but underneath it there’s a roughness Clint detects. “He broke me out and we were going to get out of there, but I made him turn. I made him become the Hulk.”

There’s some kind of significance in the way she says it. Not  _ I made him turn into the Hulk, _ but that somehow, Nat had made Bruce  _ become _ the Hulk. They both know this isn’t true, so why…

Unless she thinks she made him into a monster. That she made him  _ become _ the monster that he otherwise would have subverted.

“You were doing what you needed to do,” Clint says. “We wouldn’t have won that fight if even one person had been gone. You did the right thing.”

“I’m losing sight of what the right thing is, anymore,” Natasha murmurs. She looks up sharply, and her hair swings around her face until it plasters against her cheek. “You’re going home.”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to come,” Clint says. He knows what her answer will be.

Natasha shakes her head. “Tell Laura I say hi. And the kids...take care of them.” She lifts an eyebrow, reverting with unsettling ease to her witty, quick self. “Someone’s gotta whip those rascals into shape.”

Clint nods. “Yes ma’am.” He pushes against the wall behind his back and lifts himself to his feet, even though all of his muscles are groaning in protest.

“Grab that bathrobe for me,” Nat says, pointing. Clint unhooks the bathrobe from the hook on the door and tosses it to Nat, who stands, stretches, and then wraps the bathrobe around herself. She ties the string and steps out of the bathtub. Water drips and pools around her heels. “One for the road, okay? Just the one.”   
Clint smirks despite himself. “You always say that.”

He steps closer and wraps her in a hug. Natasha is not the type to hug, but Clint, it seems, inspires a few exceptions. Even though she’s just come out of the bath, Nat smells like the battle; like earth and like blood and like despair. Her hair is all tangled. She’s tense (hugging people can make you pick up on these things), so Clint squeezes tighter in sheer stubbornness.

Natasha actually laughs. “Whatever happened to  _ look, don’t touch _ ?”

“You started this,” Clint points out.

Nat pulls away and pats his head twice. She meets his eyes with a sly smile. “Go,” she says puckishly, pushing on his shoulder. “Romance waits for no one, so I’ve been told.”

Clint smiles at her and pats her head in return. “Come visit whenever,” he says. “Just one condition. No wayward gods.”

As he turns to go, he hears, “I didn’t need you to  _ invite _ me.”

He smirks.

* * *

Wanda is sitting on the edge of the bed in her room. When Clint opens the door and walks in, her head snaps up like she’s expecting an attack.

“Real life takes some getting used to,” Clint says by way of greeting. “Trust me. I know.”

“Trust you,” Wanda echoes. “Trust the man who almost killed my brother.”

Clint groans as he sits on the edge of the bed next to her. “Ah, yeah,” he says sympathetically. “Trust is a complicated thing. I know that, too.”

“Clint,” Wanda ventures, “do you have a family?”

  
Why does he feel so much like an open book today? It’s like everyone can read his intentions right there on his face. He might as well have a neon sign.  _ Hey, guys, Clint Barton is in emotional distress and really wants a hug from his wife right now! _

It’s out of his mouth before he can debate over how much he can trust Wanda with the awareness of his wife and kids.

“Yeah,” he says, “I do. I’m going to see them now.”

Wanda gives him a nervous look.

“They’re alive,” he adds. This addendum should be implied. The fact that it’s not is depressing. “Just came to wish you well, kid. I’m heading out within the hour.”

Wanda says nothing, but she looks away, at her hands, and her eyes soften. Clint sees it happen, the moment her face changes into forgiveness. He’s out of the woods. Maybe they, as a whole, the Avengers, maybe they’re still in the woods, but Clint? Out of them. The woods are a speck on the horizon behind him.

He’s getting carried away with the metaphor of the woods, but the point stands.

“Pietro?” Wanda says, her voice rising in the unspoken question at the end.

“Good. Better than good. He’s healing crazy fast,” Clint says. “He’ll be up and running by tomorrow latest. Literally up and running.”

Wanda cracks a hesitant smile at her lap. “So you are just...leaving?”

Clint shrugs. “It’s hard, having a family and being...this. Being an Avenger. It’s a lifetime commitment, whether they tell you that or not, but being married is a lifetime commitment too. Some guy smarter than me has it all figured out. I’m just trying my best. It’s all I can do.”

Wanda doesn’t fidget. It’s not in her nature, but Clint can tell that if it was, she’d be doing it. Instead she sits rigid and still, her back a straight line, her eyes deep and lost.

“You don’t have to worry about any of that,” Clint adds. “Count yourself lucky. All you gotta do is take care of yourself, alright?”

“And Pietro,” Wanda says.

“I think he can take care of himself.”

“Obviously he cannot.”

Clint shakes his head. “You’re thinking about it wrong, Wanda. It’s not about property. It’s not about who’s best. There’s a difference between — between watching his back and owning him. Look, the guy’s unstoppable, you saw that yourself. He took, what, twenty bullets? And he’s shakin’ ‘em right off. Right as rain.” He puts a reassuring hand over hers — how are her hands so soft, so small? Must be a side effect of never physically using her hands to fight, or maybe Clint’s hands are just rough and calloused — and she looks up. “You’re allowed to be worried, but you gotta give the guy a little space. Depending entirely on another person is never a good idea, and it’s not healthy.”

“You cannot understand,” Wanda whispers. Her words hit him like a stab in the chest, although there’s no way she can know that. “I have never had anyone else. Pietro...he is all I have ever had. Losing him…”

Clint bites back a sharp reply. “Hey,” he says, though he can’t stop his voice from sounding tight. His mind blossoms with images of Natasha, a deadly glare in her eyes; Natasha, gripping his forearm as she leads him out of the range of fire; Natasha, throwing his bow to him with an effortless toss as she shoots her gun with her other hand; Natasha, pressing a cloth to the wounds on his face even as she tuts at him for getting into trouble; Natasha, ejecting Loki from his mind with a well-placed kick. “I understand.” He swallows. “So you gotta trust me when I tell you that you have to find someone else to trust. At least someone else to depend on.”

Wanda searches his face. Clint would like to believe that she’s only looking  _ at  _ him, not  _ into  _ him, but with her superpowers...who the hell knows. 

She gives him a wry smile. “Okay, grandpapa.”

Clint rolls his eyes. The moment dissipates, but he’s grateful, because he’d begun to feel a little awkward. “Not that old!”

He affectionately pushes her head as he stands up, and she’s actually laughing. Wanda Maximoff is actually, seriously, legitimately laughing.

Clint can’t help but feel like he’s done a good thing.

* * *

 

 

When Clint sees Pietro lying immobile on the shitty doctor’s office mattress, his visceral reaction is to panic. For a moment his vision tunnels and it’s just Pietro again, lying on the concrete, crumbling ground, twenty bullet holes peppering his body.

Then Stark pops his head up from behind a table and jerks his chin in Clint’s general direction. “Barton. Kid’s alright. I might have to steal him from you, though. Remarkable biology and all that. He’s definitely onto something. But he’s all patched up, just napping.” Dryly: “Probably past his bedtime.”

Clint lets out the breath trapped in the back of his mouth. “Thanks,” he says. 

Stark shrugs. He comes around the table where Pietro lays and tosses the rag in his hands off to the side. It lands in a clump on the floor. Clint rolls his eyes. Tony Stark is the most deliberately messy person he knows. It’s a wonder that man puts his shoes on the right feet every day. God’s honest truth, Clint would not be surprised if he one day showed up to a fight with the gauntlets on the wrong hands.

“You probably saved his life,” Stark says, rocking back and forth on his heels for approximately three seconds. This stillness is obviously a challenge, so he takes a decisive step away from Clint and strides towards a countertop to start fidgeting with the tools and medical paraphernalia there. “I’m not a doctor. So. You really shouldn’t thank me. All I did was get the bullets out.”

“He would’ve died if you hadn’t,” Clint points out.

Stark scoffs. “Honestly? I don’t think he would’ve. Guy’s got a crazy immune system, or healing factor, or magic powers, or something. I don’t know. I seriously think if he’d healed around the bullets, his body would have literally just broken down the metal until it was part of his system. It’s insane, I’m serious. This is one of the most beautiful science experiments ever. Other than, you know.” He gestures vaguely at the door, eyes still flickering between a pair of scissors and a gauze pad as he cuts it up. “The Captain.”

“Eh, I don’t know,” Clint says. He crosses to Stark’s discarded rag and picks it up. “This guy could definitely give Cap a run for his money.”

Tony snorts. “You think? I would pay good money to see that fight. Seriously, a lot of money. Rogers talks a big game about being humble and ‘not even a big deal compared to the technology we have today,’ yadda yadda yadda. Quicksilver versus Captain America, now there’s a headliner.”

The image of this (and mostly the image of Steve Rogers’ face, offended and appalled, as he gets destroyed by Pietro Maximoff, who isn’t even two decades old) makes Clint bark a laugh. “Make sure you grab me a ticket.”

He grabs something out of the air before he’s even aware that it’s been thrown. When he opens his palm, he retroactively registers seeing Stark toss something in his periphery.

Stark whistles. “Your reflexes are a thing of beauty. Seriously, how?”

Clint holds the vial up to his face. Twenty flattened and melted bullets jangle around in the glass bottle.

“What am I supposed to do with these? Frame them?”

Stark snatches the rag from Clint’s other hand in passing and drapes it over his shoulder. “Pepper framed the very first arc reactor I ever made. That’s not a joke. Seriously. Glass box, metal ring that said ‘proof that Tony Stark has a heart.’ And they say I’m showy.” He emits a sound that Clint would classify as some gray area between a laugh and a scoff. “The point is, sentimentality. And shit. I don’t know.”

“You just handed me a vial of bullets from a person who almost died on my behalf,” Clint says, “for sentimentality and shit?” 

“Pepper saved my life with her cheesy — framed — heart joke,” Stark points out, staggering his words as he grasps at them.

Clint shakes his head. “Alright, I’ll keep them, but only so I can impress my kids.”

“Bullets for children,” Stark says, smirking. “Great idea. You know, I always knew you were going to be a stellar dad.”

“You are a dad?” comes a groaning voice from behind Tony. “This explains a lot. Why you are so old, and slow.”

“Pietro,” Clint says dryly. “You woke up. Damn it, there go my hopes and dreams.”

Pietro cackles for a moment before, apparently, realizing he is still in pain. “Ah,” he says, grimacing. He sits up and winces.

“Uh, yeah, moving? Wouldn’t recommend it,” Stark says. “You did get drilled twenty times, and not in the fun way.”

“Stark,” Clint mutters.

Tony is already across the room. He holds up a small orange bottle that looks very much like subscription drugs. Clint raises an eyebrow. Tony tosses the bottle to Pietro, who catches it with ease.

“Painkillers,” Stark says.

Pietro laughs, although there is a tinge of irony to the way it sounds. “I do not think these will work on me. The doctors on the lifeboats could not put me to sleep.”

“Were the doctors on the lifeboat me? No,” Stark says petulantly. “Trust me, those will work on you. Two a day, no more. You shouldn’t be doing drugs. God, I’m a bad influence. Well, I’ll leave you two alone now. Sure you’ve got some goodbyes to say.” With finality, Tony claps Clint on the back and exits the room.

The room quiets down so quickly it feels like a computer powering down, the moment Tony leaves. The walls feel blindingly white, and the subtle buzzing from whatever Stark’s latest automatronic contraption is sounds amplified tenfold.

Pietro examines the pill bottle. “He likes to be the best, Mr. Stark.”

Clint laughs. “Smartest thing you’ve said all day.”

His laugh reverberates around the room, so hollow and lifeless. This is the kind of room where people go to die. Clint would love to get out of there as soon as possible.

“You are saying goodbye,” Pietro says. “Where are you going?”

Clint allows a half-smile. “Home,” he says. He’s about to clap a hand on Pietro’s shoulder when he realizes this is probably a bad idea (twenty recovering bullet wounds and all), and instead he shoves his hand in his pocket. Instinctively he releases the glass vial, where it sits in his pocket like a ticking time bomb. It’s impossible not to be thoroughly aware of it.

“What is home anymore?” Pietro mumbles, shadows stretching across his face from the dark circles around his eyes. Even after a nap, the kid looks perpetually exhausted. Clint can only imagine what he himself must look like. Everyone here looks like they’ve been dragged through hell and were conscious for every moment. In a way, it’s true.

“Where the heart is,” Clint says, for lack of anything better to say. Where is home, anyway? For Clint, it’s with his family, and always will be. For Pietro, a kid who hasn’t had a home since god-knows-when, a kid whose only comfort ever in life has been his twin sister...what is home to a kid like that?

It’s on the tip of his tongue to offer for Pietro and Wanda to come with him and live with him and Laura when Pietro muses, “I suppose me and Wanda will have our own rooms. Now that we are living here.”

Clint swallows down the invitation. “Well, duh,” he says, reaching out to ruffle Pietro’s hair. “You’re an Avenger now. We get all the perks.”

Pietro smirks. It lasts approximately three seconds, before dissolving into a slight frown. “You are going to your family?”

Clint nods. Pietro seems saddened by this, although not by Clint’s departure, specifically: more...the idea of him having someplace to go.

Right. Where is Pietro’s family anymore?

“You got lucky,” he points out. “Your family is right here with you. You get the perks  _ and _ your sister, all in one place.”

Pietro lifts his chin up and meets Clint’s eyes. For a guy who probably can’t even legally drink, he looks strikingly wise. There is a melancholy in his eyes that cracks through the icy blue. “If I could give up the perks in exchange for my family,” he whispers, “I would do it faster than anything I have ever done.”

Well, that’s fair. And honestly, Clint had kinda set himself up for that one. In repentance, he squeezes Pietro’s shoulder (another bout of poor judgement on his part, based on Pietro’s flinch) and says, “I know, kid. You gotta count your blessings. At the end of the day, you’ve got your sister, and you’ve got a new home. We take what we can get.” He almost bites it back, but finishes anyway with, “When you’re as old as I am...you’ll understand.”

It is this, in the end, which shatters the somber expression on Pietro’s face, giving way to a smile. “But that will take me forever,” he says innocently. “How will I ever reach the age you are at?”

“Forty-four,” Clint reminds him. “I’m younger than Stark.”

“Keep telling yourself this,” Pietro says, grinning.

At his smile, Clint finally feels like he can leave.

 

So he does.

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I would sacrifice my family for Wanda and Pietro Maximoff as the unofficial adoptive children of Clint Barton  
> 2\. there is another fic in this 'verse coming soon! I have already written it, which is how I can guarantee its publishing. It involves some very domestic Natasha & Clint lemonade-making. That's all I'm saying about that.  
> 3\. Tony Stark is a bisexual male individual, and that's just blanket canon  
> 4\. My tumblr is always open to chat about whatever at [@vivilevone](http://vivilevone.tumblr.com/), so feel free to send a message my way! Thank you for reading!


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